


Waking Memory

by KatesBrain



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Morning After
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-16 06:37:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11823246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatesBrain/pseuds/KatesBrain
Summary: The morning after the Seventh Year leaving party, Harry wakes up with more than just a hangover.- originally posted July 2005





	Waking Memory

**Author's Note:**

> AU - written before the end was known!  
> Vaseline Disclaimer: Yes, I know it shouldn’t be used with condoms, so “please don’t try this at home, folks!” For the sake of this fic, I chose to ignore the science and include the minor reference anyway, because I knew Sue would appreciate it and it is her birthday, after all. ;-)
> 
> Notes: Big thanks go to Shocolate, Westwardlee and Aidendavis for checking it through for me. Any remaining mistakes are the result of my own incompetence…

“Fuck off, Seamus!”

 

As far as all those present were concerned, Harry had said this in jest. Inside, however, he was fuming; how dare they cheapen his friendship with Ron? He tried not to glare across the common room at the others as he took the bottle of Old Ogden’s from Ron sitting next to him. Taking another swig, Harry was pleased to note that Seamus was at least right about one thing: after the first few gulps, the firewhisky stopped burning quite so much on the way down.

 

“Oh, come off it, Harry,” Seamus continued. “What else are we supposed to think? Neither of you have had a proper girlfriend; you seem to spend all your time in each others’ pockets; and to top it off, you come to our leaving party together.”

 

It was true that Harry and Ron had been in the minority at the party, not having partners. But there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for this: after the disaster of the fourth year ball, they had refused to spoil their leaving party by inviting girls along who would only sulk because Ron and Harry didn’t want to dance. So this time, they had been free to sit at a table the whole evening, drink butterbeer, chat and drink some more. It had been a good evening, and they had retreated to the common room with the rest of the Seventh Year Gryffindors in high spirits. Until now that is, when Seamus had decided to give Ron and him a ribbing for not having dates.

 

“We didn’t come _together_!” Harry protested, wincing at his double-entendre, and also, cringing at the memory it brought to mind. Only a few weeks ago he had walked in on Ron having a wank in the showers. Harry shivered at the thought. He had left the shower room immediately, of course, but he’d never forget the look of exquisite pleasure on Ron’s face: the slackened jaw, Ron’s lips slightly parted and his breaths deep and raspy. Harry still felt guilty about having intruded on such a private moment, even though Ron hadn’t known about it, and Harry had no intention of ever letting him find out.

 

“Yeah, I bet!” Neville said, eagerly joining in with the joke and laughing. “The pair of you looked very cosy in the corner of the Great Hall, huddled over your butterbeers.”

 

Enough was enough, Harry decided, and Neville had just given him the perfect opportunity to redirect the piss-taking, or so he hoped.

 

“I’d rather look ‘cosy’ than be responsible for flattening Ginny’s feet,” Harry retorted, and then, in one swift--though slightly uncoordinated, thanks to the alcohol--movement, Harry rose to his feet and extended his hand to Ron. “Shall we demonstrate just what Neville looked like at the party?”

 

Ron chuckled and took Harry’s hand, standing up with a lurch. Then they were waltzing around the room in a drunken parody of Neville and Ginny’s earlier attempts at dancing.

 

As they laughed and stumbled and feigned treading on each others’ feet, Harry mused over the ending of his time at Hogwarts. Everything in his life was either changing or set to change soon: no more Hogwarts; no more living under the shadow of threat from Voldemort; no more Quidditch because there wouldn’t be time alongside Auror training; and no more Hermione, either--well, not for several months, at least. Hermione would be moving away to Siberia to make contact with a population of Elves who had avoided enslavement in the Wizarding World. She hoped that those free-living Elves might be able to help her in her ongoing work with S.P.E.W.

 

Harry was grateful that Ron was still going to be around and that they would be carrying out their Auror training together. He couldn’t imagine what his life would be like without his best friend there with him. Their friendship was something that Harry could rely on, and it was one of the few things that weren’t going to change.

 

Eventually, Harry and Ron collapsed in a heap and indulged in more drinking. The conversation moved on, with more jibes thrown indiscriminately amongst the Gryffindors, more firewhisky shared round and with Harry’s vision of the world becoming increasingly blurry.

 

**

 

Still half-asleep, Harry kicked at the covers, sliding them from his hot skin. He groaned slightly and brought a hand to his brow. Besides having a head that felt decidedly the worse for wear, he ached in several places, his lips felt bruised, the skin around his mouth was sore and he needed a drink to clear the stale taste from his parched mouth. At least, he reflected, he had somehow made it up to bed--probably someone had levitated him there. But…no. If he had been coordinated enough to get himself undressed--even if he hadn’t succeeded in putting on his pyjamas afterwards--then he had probably made it to bed under his own steam.

 

He frowned as a vague flash of memory came back to him: lying on the floor, trying to pull his dress robes off, an extra pair of hands fumbling to undo the buttons, followed by someone yanking his robes roughly over his head. But he couldn’t remember anything else, and he told himself that it was probably just some weird dream brought on by too much alcohol.

 

Stretching slightly, Harry felt something warm brush up against one side of him and he sleepily rolled over, away from the unwelcome heat, before dozing for a while longer. But as his head began to throb more steadily, Harry found it more and more difficult to ignore the pain and his dry, rancid mouth.

 

Opening his eyes, he reached out to the blurry bedside table and cringed when two of his fingers sank into a pot of gluey substance. He hastily wiped his hand on the bed and pulled himself upright, bringing the vague outline of his glasses into better focus. As soon as he had put them on, Harry looked at the pot of goo. Relief passed through him at first, followed by bewilderment. Why he would have an opened pot of Vaseline on his bedside table? Next to the pot, there was also some crumpled up rubbish, two wands--one of which looked like Ron’s--and a mug of what appeared to be water. Figuring that anything would taste better than the coating of bacteria his mouth currently contained, Harry downed the entire contents. It was stale, but it _was_ water.

 

As he set the mug down, Harry noticed that Neville wasn’t in bed and that his bed didn’t even appear slept in. Then Harry did a double take. Neville had a West Ham poster? Swivelling his head round, it took Harry several moments before he could work out what was wrong: he had managed to fall asleep in the wrong bed--Ron’s--and so hadn’t been looking at Neville’s bed, at all. He hoped Ron wouldn’t be too pissed off at him, and then he wondered where Ron had spent the night, as none of the other beds held any occupants. The dormitory was suspiciously empty.

 

A sudden grunt came from behind Harry, startling him. He remembered the something warm that had brushed up his side earlier, and he froze, registering for the first time that there was someone sharing his--no, Ron’s--bed. The body grunted once more and Harry felt the bed move before hearing the beginnings of a loud, heavy snore. Who could he have possibly gone to bed with? Enough people had come on to him the previous evening, but he had had no intention of taking up any of the offers. He guessed that it must be someone with a reasonably small build for them not to be squashed up together. Painfully aware of his nakedness, Harry slowly turned around, noticing that the base of the bed was a lot wider than usual. An enlargement charm, perhaps? He couldn’t remember casting that, either. His eyes fell upon the figure next to him, and he gasped.

 

Facing the other way--and naked, at least from the waist up--was Ron, one of his socks draped across the top of the pillow, half an inch from his nose. He was completely dead to the world, his snores steadily increasing in volume and making the throbbing in Harry’s head worse. He had to be dreaming.

 

Harry slumped back down and closed his eyes, hoping that he would wake up in a minute, or that some fragment of memory would come back to him, giving him a rational explanation for all of this.

 

He could remember being back in Gryffindor Tower and helping the others to consume several bottles of Old Ogden’s. But it was around that time that Harry’s memory started to get a little hazy. There had been drunken dancing, and he had recollections of bits of garbled conversation that he couldn’t make head nor tail of now, and then he had been pushed up the stairs alongside Ron. After that, his mind drew a blank. He certainly couldn’t remember anyone doing things to Ron that would involve leaving the sort of marks which Ron currently sported on his shoulders and neck. Given that they were in bed together and that Harry was naked, there seemed to be one answer screaming out at him for acknowledgement. But Harry had no intention of even considering that train of thought.

 

Would Ron remember what happened? And if…if by some remote chance that they had…had…done something, what would Ron think about it? But how could Harry possibly find out for sure without seeming to be overtly interested in…in…that sort of thing? And did he really want to know, anyway? He shook his head, willing the situation he found himself in to disappear, and then groaned as the pain in his head flared up once more because of the movement. He guessed that he should be practical; he should wake Ron up and just ask him, but despite all of his Gryffindor courage, at that moment Harry felt rather like Neville did when faced with Snape.

 

It wasn’t long before Ron’s snores gradually petered out. Harry felt him shift on the bed and then heard a startled gasp. Rolling his head to the side, Harry saw that Ron was now very wide-awake and was also apparently mortified.

 

“You snore really loudly,” Harry said, avoiding the obvious topic of conversation. “I’ve never noticed before just how much noise you can make through your nose.”

 

“Harry, why are you in my bed?”

 

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to think about it right now, either: my head hurts too much.”

 

“Oh.” Ron sat up, wincing slightly, and looked around the dormitory. “At least there’s no one here to witness this.”

 

He made a vague hand motion towards the mug, asking if it was empty, and Harry confirmed that it was and offered to fill it up from the bathroom. Dragging himself out of bed, he felt a blush work its way across his cheeks. This was the first time in his life that he felt awkward being naked in front of Ron.

 

As he turned on the tap in the bathroom and brushed his teeth to remove the stale taste, Harry glanced up and caught his reflection in the mirror. Ron wasn’t the only one covered in marks: on Harry’s neck and shoulders and all the way down his chest were a smattering of round bruises. How could they have done this? What on earth had possessed him to…do…well, _things_ with Ron? _Looks like my friendship with Ron is going to change along with everything else,_ he thought. _Bugger._ Harry did a double-take at the word. Did they go that far? He certainly didn’t feel sore. Surely he would be able to tell if Ron had buggered him. Harry shuddered at the thought.

 

It wasn’t as if he’d ever seriously contemplated the idea of doing things with someone of the same sex; maybe he could understand it if he had. Once, when he and the other Seventh Year boys had talked about a couple of boys in Ravenclaw who’d been caught in the Astronomy Tower, Harry had briefly mulled over the general concept. He could imagine that kissing would probably be the same--only with the extra stubble, and this last point had made him cringe at the time. But he still hadn’t been able to fathom why anyone would actually _want_ to. Apparently, last night he’d had an epiphany on the subject.

 

Once he was satisfied that the reddish tinge to his cheeks had disappeared, Harry made his way back to the bedroom and nearly dropped the mug in shock. On the floor by the bed was a mound of tissues, and from these tissues poked the end of a condom—a condom that had most definitely been used. _Oh God, I had sex with my best friend, and I don’t even remember it._ He wouldn’t think about it, he told himself as he handed the mug to Ron and got back into bed. If he didn’t think about it, then…then maybe it would go away.

 

In the ensuing silence, he briefly wondered why he had got back into _Ron’s_ bed. But he didn’t know; he couldn’t think. All he was capable of focusing on was the evidence that lay on the floor. It was no good: as much as he tried, he couldn’t get the picture of it out of his mind, and he couldn’t keep quiet about it any longer.

 

“There’s a used condom on the floor.”

 

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it…”

 

“But…we had sex, and…and I don’t remember any of it.”

 

“You don’t?”

 

Harry shook his head and asked, “Do you?”

 

Ron’s complexion began to redden, and he fidgeted with the duvet as he spoke. “ _Some_ things are starting to come back to me.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“Well…er…like when we were in the common room and Seamus dared us to…to kiss. He said that if we were such good friends then it wouldn’t matter, wouldn’t be a big deal, not unless we had something to hide.” Ron paused, giving the mug back to Harry to place back on the table and looking at Harry as if searching for some sort of recollection on Harry’s part. There was none. “So…er…we did.”

 

“In front of everyone?” At Ron’s confirmation, Harry’s stomach gave a sudden lurch. “But it was just a…a peck, right?”

 

Ron gravely shook his head, leaving Harry feeling more than a little nauseous at the spectacle they must have made of themselves.

 

“Tongues?” Harry asked tentatively. “They all watched us kiss with tongues…. Oh, God. Did we…we didn’t…we didn’t do anything else in front of them?”

 

“No, Dean and Seamus pushed us upstairs at that point.”

 

“And then?”

 

“Seamus shoved you in my direction, and we ended up on the floor, with you on top of me…. You…we…kissed again.”

 

“With Seamus and Dean still in the room?”

 

“I don’t know. I think they just…um…enlarged the bed and left.”

 

Harry’s earlier flash of memory, of lying of the floor while someone else helped him to disrobe, came back to him. “So it was you who…helped me take my robes off?”

 

“Um…yeah,” Ron said, shifting awkwardly in the bed. “Just after you…er…helped me with mine….”

 

“Oh.” Harry tried to ignore the mental imagine that brought to mind, of helping Ron disrobe in a sexual way. They had helped each other many a time before, when one of them had been injured or hexed in some way that left them partially incapacitated. But to think he had done it out of eagerness to have sex with Ron…. _Oh no,_ he thought, _I am not getting hard thinking about this. I am not… Oh, shit_

 

“Bloody alcohol, eh?” Ron said with a hesitant laugh. “It’s enough to turn a bloke teetotal!”

 

“Er…yeah,” Harry said, and he winced as his voice came out far squeakier than he had intended. “So, er, do you remember anything else?”

 

“Not much.” Harry watched in curiosity as Ron’s face blushed even harder, all the way to the tips of his ears. “We…er…found a tub of Vaseline left on my bedside table, and…um…. Harry, I don’t suppose you’re sore…down _there_?”

 

“No.”

 

“Oh.”

 

From the look on Ron’s face, it was clear to Harry just who had been doing the fucking. He felt mortified and fervently hoped that he hadn’t forced himself on Ron. “I’m sorry, Ron. I…. Does it hurt much?”

 

“Not really, just a bit uncomfortable, that’s all.”

 

“You’d think that I wouldn’t be in any…er…fit state to….”

 

“Well, _I_ wasn’t at that point,” Ron said stonily. “I guess that’s probably why we...um…did it the way we did.”

 

“Oh.”

 

They lapsed into silence for a while, which left Harry alone with his thoughts, much to his frustration. He wanted to talk some more. He wanted to know more details, but couldn’t bring himself to ask, not with Ron seeming so appalled by what had happened. But most of all, Harry needed something with which to distract himself, to take those images of Ron wanking in the shower out of his head. Had he been responsible for making Ron look like that? Probably not, going by Ron’s last words. They had had sex, and Ron hadn’t even been able to come. Harry was surprised how saddened he felt by this fact. Did this mean he really was gay, or bisexual, or something?

 

He snuck a quick peek at Ron and felt a sudden desire to touch him, to make him happy in such an intimate way. It wasn’t fair. Why did he have to feel this way now? Why did this have to happen? Why did things have to change?  

 

“This is going to make things awkward between us, isn’t it?” Harry finally said.

 

“I guess so. We’re…we’re still going to be friends, though?”

 

“Yeah, of course. Unless…unless you think it’d be too weird.”

 

“No!” Ron said hastily. “Weird, but not _too_ weird.”

 

“Was I really that bad at it?” Harry suddenly blurted out, surprising both himself and Ron.

 

Crimson faced, Ron looked lost for a moment. His lower jaw twitched for a while as if he was trying to form a word, any word, and then he said in a small voice, “No. No you weren’t.” He swallowed. “God, Harry, please don’t hate me for saying that.”

 

“So, you…enjoyed it?” When Ron didn’t answer, Harry added, “Ron?”

 

Ron silently nodded his head.

 

“Did you enjoy it enough to want to do it again?”

 

Ron’s eyes flew wide open and he snapped his head round to look at Harry in astonishment. Harry gave a nervous smile, and before his courage gave way, he brazenly leant in to brush his lips across Ron’s.

 

“Harry?”

 

“I…I want to know what it was like.” Harry said, his voice subdued, and he hoped that he hadn’t just made the second biggest mistake of his life. “If the thought disgusts you, then tell me to sod off, and I’ll never mention it again. We can pretend that none of this ever happened.”

 

Ron pushed himself up onto his elbows and their lips connected for a second time that morning. Harry reacted instantly, pulling away and screwing up his face with distaste.

 

“Sorry, but…your breath’s a little bit rancid.” Giving an apologetic smile, he reached for his wand and asked Ron to open his mouth before casting a quick mouth-cleansing charm. “Can we try again?”

 

Leaning on his forearms, Harry shifted closer to bring their mouths together in a tentative kiss. It was soft and slow, at first, with their lips shyly making contact and Harry afraid that Ron would back away at any second. But then he felt his confidence begin to build as Ron’s mouth opened up to him, letting their tongues slip against each other, teasingly, tasting of mint from the charm he had cast.

 

Ron moaned, and spurred on by the fact that Ron seemed to be enjoying it as much as he was, Harry brought a palm up to Ron’s face, rubbing across the fresh stubble before sliding his hand back to thread his fingers through Ron’s hair. At the same time, Ron rolled over to face Harry completely, trailing his fingers cautiously up and down Harry’s side, caution soon giving way to confidence and his fingertips dancing back and forth in a hypnotising rhythm. It was Harry’s turn to moan now, and he ran his hand down the back of Ron’s neck, across the smooth skin of his shoulder blades, along his spine that sloped downwards to the soft curve of his arse, which Harry used as leverage to pull Ron’s hips further forward, a deep, rumbling groan passing from one mouth to the other and back again as their hard cocks made contact underneath the ripples of duvet.

 

As he started to rub his groin against Ron’s, Harry broke the kiss and opened his eyes to take in the expression on Ron’s face. It was just as he had seen in the showers, with slackened jaw and lips slightly parted as Ron drew in deep and raspy breaths, and Harry couldn’t restrain a huge smile at the thought that he had done that to Ron. Ducking his head, Harry languidly traced a path from bruise to bruise with his tongue, thrilled at the notion that he had been welcome there before. The skin tasted salty, but what surprised--and pleased--Harry the most was the smell, rich and pungent, with an undertone that reminded him of himself. Oh yes, he had definitely been there before.

 

Harry started to pant more heavily, in time with the insistent rocking of their bodies, and he could feel Ron’s fingers tightening briefly around his hips before splaying out across his arse, tugging at him, spreading him and pulling him closer still, pinning their cocks firmly between them, increasing the friction, which sent Harry’s eyes rolling in their sockets. He felt a sudden urge to call out the words “I love you” but resisted: he’d loved Ron for a long time, even if it was just as a friend, but to say it under these circumstances seemed unbearably mushy.

 

Instead of telling Ron of his newly-mutated emotion, Harry concentrated on licking his way back up to Ron’s jaw. He could feel Ron’s hot breath across his face, and Harry tilted his head to capture Ron’s lips once more. There was a sense of desperation to their kisses now as noses bumped together, teeth became caught in the mix and Harry tasted the tang of blood upon his tongue. But Ron didn’t seem to care and neither did Harry. All that mattered was feeling the length of Ron’s body pressed up against his own, with as much skin making contact as possible. Their thrusts became more and more frantic against the backdrop of sound, of bedclothes rustling and their combined moans and gasps and heavy breathing.

 

Not getting enough leverage on his side, Harry rolled them over and began rutting in earnest on top of Ron. Then Ron’s tongue was circling lightly in the hollow of his throat, and that was it for Harry. He came, hard, a loud guttural sound renting the air. He was only dimly aware of Ron still thrusting up underneath him for a few seconds longer before Ron, too, was coming.

 

For a while, stillness descended upon the dormitory as they lay slumped together, both catching their breaths, Harry listening to Ron’s thundering heart rate gradually slow and quieten. He could’ve stayed like that for the rest of the day if it wasn’t for the insistent hand that shoved at his shoulder.

 

“You’re far too heavy,” Ron murmured, and Harry obediently pulled himself off of Ron to lie down on the mattress beside him, mumbling an apology.

 

“Don’t be sorry,” Ron said as he rolled over to face Harry. “That was way better than last night.”

 

“Really?” A grin quickly worked its way across Harry’s face. “I guess I don’t feel so bad about not remembering it, then.”

 

He leant across to lazily kiss Ron, absently toying with Ron’s hair and moaning contentedly when Ron mimicked the gesture. He could definitely get used to this. Only yesterday, he had been fretting over all the changes in his life and relying on the fact that his friendship with Ron was the one thing that wouldn’t alter. Harry shivered and his cock gave a sudden lurch, trying its best to recover, as Ron’s thumb rubbed unabashedly across his nipple. Perhaps change didn’t have to be such a bad thing, after all.

 

***


End file.
